[VHRanger]

The reason time *feels slow* in these catastrophes, AFAIK is that memory formation kicks into high gear during it

Your brain isn't somehow over locking itself, you just remember everything about the event in detail, so it feels like it in retrospect

[_dceh]

That's a smart theory. I have another theory: life-review is the simulation diverting additional compute resources to your local "process" to quickly judge whether or not your annihilation would be optimal for the reality/simulation/timeline. This requires intense extra compute in real-time to assess each moment of your life, and the reason you experience it is because there's no priority in that moment to maintain the normal veil between "in-time" (real time subjective to observer) and "out-of-time" (ie as in simulation time) experience. So the rapid processing starves the normal "subjective you" process, and your consciousness gets to "peek through" at the workings of the simulation as it judges whether you dying would be catastrophic. If you "pass", then the simulation ensures your exist for at least a while longer, otherwise, it lets the event take its course.

The subconscious knowledge of this is why we've internalized and re-expressed the "judgement upon death" notion across many religions.

[gregorymichael]

I love this theory. Thank you for sharing.